//s 



I >* 



H. P. Bee. 57 

brigadier general in the Confederate States army and assigned to 
the command of the Western District of Texas, stationed at Browns- 
ville. He was desirous of finding a place in the main theater of the 
war, but in vain, since by reason of his acquaintance with the fron- 
tier and with the people of Mexico, his services were considered 
indispensable to the Confederate cause in that quarter. 

He remained in command at Brownsville until the arrival of 
Banks' army at the mouth of the Rio Grande, when witb the one 
company which liad been left with him- — the others having been 
ordered to the more eastern seat of war — he retired to the inte- 
rior, taking with him a large amount of government supplies, etc. 
Upon reporting to General Magruder he was assigned to the com- 
mand of a brigade consisting of the regiments of Likens, Terrell, 
De Bray, Woods, and Buebel, and marched to Louisiana, where he 
participated in the battles of Mansfield and Pleasant Hill. He led the 
cavalry charge at the battle of Pleasant Hill, one of the most bril- 
liant on record, in wliich the gallant Col. A. Buchel lost his life. 

After the Red River campaign, General Bee returned to Texas 
and continued with the army as a cavalry commander until the 
close of the war. 

On the fall of the Confederacy, General Bee sought in Mexico to 
retrieve his lost fortunes, but after spending some years in that 
country, he returned to Texas and was appointed to a responsible 
position at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas. 
After the' expiration of his term he moved to San Antonio in 1879, 
where he continued to reside until his death, with the exception 
of two years spent at Austin as Commissioner of Insurance, Statis- 
tics and History, under the administration of the lamented Gov- 
ernor John Ireland. 

General Bee was nmrried in ISo-f to Miss Mary Mildred Tarver, 
who survives him. Of their large family six are yet alive. He was a 
splendid type of the old school of Southern gentlemen — honorable, 
high-toned, brave and chivalrous. He passed his long life with the 
people of Texas, being the contemporary and associate of Lamar, 
Henderson, Ford, Burleson, Maverick, and a host of others whose 
names have become historic. He was earnestly interested in the 
history of Texas and its perpetuation, and died as lie had lived, 
universally beloved and admired for his sterling qualities of mind 
and heart. Peace to his ashes. 



58 Texas Historical Association Quarterly . 



THE CHEKOKEE Is^ATIOI^ OF INDIANS. 

V. O. KING. 

[P^or much of the matter contained in this paper I am indebted to the 
Bureau of American Ethnology and to Mr. Charles C. Royce and Pro- 
fessor Cyrus Thomas, its learned and efficient workers. These sources 
of information may be profitably consulted by any person interested in 
the aborig-inal literature of our countr}^ — V. O. K.] 

The Cherokees, more properly the Tsullakees, have occupied a 
more prominent place in the affairs and history of the United States 
than any other tribe, with the possible exception of the Iroquois, or 
Six Nations, of New York. They bear some resemblance to each 
other, and though an open question, the Cherokee dialect is held 
by the American Bureau of Ethnology to belong to the Iroquoisan 
family of languages. This opinion leaves the inference that in the 
remote past there was tribal union between them. 

Less than half a century after Columbus touched these shores, 
De Soto and his followers began their march to explore the lands 
that lay beyond. They penetrated the country as far as what is now 
the northern limits of Georgia, and the northeastern corner of Ala- 
bama, ^v'hen they came in contact with a tribe of natives, reported 
in their memoirs as Chelaques, but which have since been abun- 
dantly identified with the Cherokee Indians. They occupied as 
homes and hunting-grounds nearly the whole territory south of "X 

the Ohio river and east of the Mississippi — the areas excepted being I 

the present States of Mississippi and Florida, and the southern ex- \ 

tremities of Alabama and Georgia. 

Among the most interesting of the relics tliat reveal somewhat of 
the inner life of these autochthones at tliis early ])eriod. arc their 
sacred formulas, transmitted to them from a remote past, through 
traditions confided to their shamans, or ])riestly fathers. For a 
knowledge of these formulas, the world is indebted to the genius of 
an unlettered Cherokee. Sequoyah, in 1821, with a marvelous gift 
of invention, and unaided by artificial learning, constructed a syl- 
labary, })y moans of which tlu' speech ;im(1 ihoiiglil of hi- iieo])le 



f 



The Cherokee Nation of Indians. 59 

were, for the first time, brought in obedience to written characters. 
No other tribe in Xorth America had then an alphabet of its own. 
The Crees and Micmacs, in Canada, and the Tukuth Indians, in 
Alaska, had ideographic systems, invented by missionaries, and the 
Mayas, in Central America, wrote in hieroglyphics, but neither of 
them possessed a literary contrivance by which words and sentences 
could be constructed, after the method of a true orthography. The 
admirable genius of Sequoyah gave to his people this contrivance, 
by which their sacred formulas were rescued from infirm or un- 
faithful memories, and have become part of the written literature 
of the native races. Many of the Formulas, thus escaped from the 
crypt of ages, have been secured by the United States Bureau of 
Ethnology, and possess for the lover of aboriginal research the pe- 
culiar interest that in them is embalmed the faith and the philos- 
ophy of one of the most striking of the primitive peoples of the 
continent. These Formulas are terse, turgid, and cabalistic phrases 
addressed to their divinities, and which, though chiefly in the form 
of supplication, are sometimes songs of praise and eulogy, and 
sometimes charms to compel the favors of languid or reluctant 
spirits. In this latter form, they are multiplied to meet every dan- 
ger and every exigency of life; and in war, in pestilence, in famine, 
in floods, in droughts, they are trusted with reverent, unfaltering 
faith. The lover, the hunter, the warrior, each, through his sha- 
man, appeals to the potential energy of the Formula for the suc- 
cessful issue of his enterprise. Even after the missionaries of the 
vi^hite men had introduced their religion among these simple wor- 
shipers, and they had surrendered most of their creed, they still held 
tenaciously to the Formulas, as if, in some manner, interwoven with 
the destiny allotted them. The shaman, after his profession of the 
Christian faith, combined his mystic phrases with texts of Scripture 
in the same religious service, and it was not uncommon to see him 
publicly officiating as Indian conjurer and Methodist preacher. 

The Formulas, in their structure 'and purpose, very closely re- 
semble the phylacteries of the Hebrews, -n^hich consists of extracts 
from their sacred book written on strips of parchment and. accord- 
ing to the Targum, worn about the person as amulets to drive away 
evil spirits. That these phylacteries should reappear in oral form 
among an unlettered people, between whom and Israel there are 
other points of resemblance, may, not unreasonably, be taken as 



60 Texas Historical Association Quarterly. 

an added argument in support of the theory that part of the 
Jewish captives wandered from Assyria into the iSTew World, where 
they were absorbed and lost in the broad and friendly bosom of 
their indigenous host. 

The Sacred Formulas possess an ethnologic value second to no 
other known means of discovering tribal cult and character, and 
they afford measureless aid to the study of native folklore before 
it was influenced by the white man's presence. The ]\Iedical 
Formulas are concerned only with the health of the people, and 
they are based upon the following allegor}-: All the animals of the 
earth met in council to devise means for the destruction of man, 
their common enemy. Eac'h species possessed the power over some 
particular deadly pestilence; these distempers they eombined and 
turned loose upon the devoted race. The suffering and mortality 
that followed were so appalling as to excite the pity of the vegeta- 
ble world, whic^h, in its turn, called a council. Each species in this 
Kingdom was gifted with the balm that brought healing to some 
one of the many ills that afflict mankind, and, in the supreme 
moment of his despair, they distilled their life-giving balsams for 
the deliverance of man. The Shamans, who lived in close commu- 
nion w^th floral nature, were intrus'ted with her secrets; these 
secrets they embodied in formulas which they delivered to the 
people thaft they might hear the glad message; and thus they were 
saved. To the credit of this tradition, it may be affirmed that their 
Shamans were really instructed in the medicinal qualities of many 
indigenous plants. Other plants in their Materia Medica were 
wholly inert; these they employed as fetiches from some fancied 
resemblance to diseased organs, for the principle of "similia 
similibus" was as familiar to their ancestors as to the modern school 
of Doctor Hahnemann. Failing memory was treated with heggar- 
lice and other burr-bearing plants, that the sticking qualities of the 
burrs might be imparted to the memory. Goafs Rue was pre- 
scribed foT falling out of the hair because the roots of this plant 
are tough and difficult to pull up. The Maidenhair Fern was ad- 
ministered for rheumatism that the contracted muscles might un- 
b(!nd as the fronds of the fern unroll during its healthy growth. But 
the Mkdical Formulas were not restricted to drugs as curative 
agents. The bath, especially in a running stream, was a most 
trusted resource in the rherokec therapeutics, and it is curious to 



The Cherokee Nation of Indians. 61 

note that the patient was directed to plunge seven times in the 
healing flood, even as Elisha, three thousand years before, directed 
ISTaaman to wash in Jordan "seven times" for his leprosy. The 
numeral seven, it may be remarked, was as much a mystical num- 
ber with the Cherokee as with the Israelite; this is shown in his 
law establishing the seven days' purification and in other ceremo- 
nial customs enjoined by his faith. 

The Eeligous Formulas of the Cherokees reveal a system of 
belief and practice almost unique. They had no Great Spirit, yet 
their pantheon was crowded with gods; they looked forward to no 
happy 'hunting-ground as the reward of their courage and sacrifices, 
but their faith was immovable in the temporal rewards that were 
to crown their savage virtues. Long life, freedom from pain, suc- 
cess in war, in love, in the chase, were the gifts of the gods they 
worshiped, and their name was legion. They saw these gods 
clothed in the forms of birds and reptiles, of mountains and 
streams, they heard their voice in the storm and felt their presence 
in the frost, and they bowed down in homage to them all. "WTien 
death came it was to them the end of all things; no fears disturbed 
their lasit moments and no sorrow wrung the heart of their chil- 
dren. 

The Military Formulas of the Cherokees were designed to 
render their warriors invulnerable in battle, to Which end they pre- 
scribed dbarmed roots and ceremonial washings. A writer for 
the American Bureau of Ethnology, referring to the practice here 
enjoined, mentions the fact that it was religiously observed by al- 
most every man of the three hundred Cherokees who served in the 
war between the States, and he humorously adds, "It is but fair to 
state that not more than two or three of the entire number were 
wounded in actual battle." 

The devotional methods of the Cherokee disclosed by these For- 
mulas and the traditions inspiring them reveal in him an essen- 
tially religious mind — ^t.he result of his cbse relation to creative 
power. Like the Jew, and in common w4th other Indians, he "be- 
lieved himself to be the result -of a special creation by a partial 
deity, and Held that his was the one favored race," but, unlike the 
Jew, 'he has not been able to impress his sacred character upon 
other races of men. 



62 Texas Historical Association Quarterly. 

It was nearly a century after the expedition of De Soto before 
the Cherokees again met the white man. Then they encountered 
the pioneers from the Atlantic coast, and then the racial conflict 
began — ^a conflict that for two hundred and fifty years has been 
waged against the rapacity of Anglo-Saxon civilization. When 
first begun, the villages of the Cherokees covered the mountains 
and valleys of the Shenandoah, and their scouts camped on the 
summit of Monticello. Upon the ]31ue Eidge the Cherokee sat as 
upon a thone; within his dominion was cradled "the Tennessee 
and the Cumberland, the Kanawha, and the Kentucky, the Pedee 
and the Santee, the Savannah and the Altamaha, the Chatahoochee 
and the Alabama;" along their banks he pursued his game, and 
upon their laughing waters his love-song and his war-whoop were 
carried to the sea. These scenes of sovereign sway remained un- 
disturbed for many years after the white man became the red 
man's neighbor. The distance between the mountains and the 
sea coast for a long time kept them apart. The cupidity of the 
white fur-trader, however, and the display of his coveted goods 
brought the tAvo together within the dominions of the native mon- 
archs. The Ahabs thus saw their neighbor's splendid vineyard 
and were stricken with a passion to possess it. The title to the 
coveted possession was thenceforth to be only a question of time. 

From 1721 to 1788, the Cherokees made ten treaties, by which 
the Colonies of Virginia, Georgia, and the two Carolinas acquired 
seventy thousand square miles of land. From 1785 to 1866, they 
executed thirty-five treaties with the United States, by which they 
ceded fifty-six thousand square miles of territory lying south of the 
Ohio river. To the new country thus acquired, the Americans of 
the Atlantic States were early attracted. Among these immigrants 
was the widowed mother of Sam Houston, who, with her family, 
moved from Virginia to Tennessee, in 1807, and settled on the Ten- 
nessee river, the bounrlary line between the American and Chero- 
kee possessions. Her son, the future liero of San Jacinto, was 
then fourteen years of age, and was not long in finding his way 
across the river to the red braves of whom he had heard, and for 
whom he had conceived a most romantic passion. Their unfettered 
habits, their wild liberty, their love of adventure, found in him a 
responsive chord. He was daily, and often for days, without inter- 
mission, among his new friends, and for four years the companion- 



The Cherokee Nation of Indians. 63 

sliip continued. During this time he was adopted by the Chief 
Oolooteka, as his son. Two years afterwards, he fougiit in the Creek 
war, side by side with tlie Cherokees, as American allies. 

jSTotwithstanding the vast areas acquired from the Cherokees, they 
were still in possession of extensive domains, and these gave rise to 
such frequent conflicts with white settlers, that the United States 
government resolved upon separating the hostile elements. As 
early as 1803, President Jefferson suggested the exchange with the 
Indians of their lands on the east of the Mississippi for equal areas 
on the west, lying within the Louisiana purchase. In 1809, a few 
Cherokees moved to Arkansas, and ten years later six thousand had 
emigrated; the majority, however, resented the most alluring offers, 
and clung with superstitious tenacity to their native hills and 
streams. Their obstinacy, and the commotion attending it, again 
brought Sam Houston in the drama of Cherokee life. He was ap- 
pointed sub-agent to the refractory tribe, and successfully carried 
out the treaty recently concluded with it. 

in 1822, a convention was made between the Cherokees and the 
EiMpire of Mexico, by which the Indians were permitted to occupy 
and cultivate certain lands in eastern Texas, in consideration of 
fealty and service in case of war. Neither the empire, however, nor 
its successor, the Republic of Mexico, would consent to part with 
their sovereignty in the soil, and persistently refused any other 
rights than those of domicile and tillage to the savage tenants. 
What is known in Texas history as the Fredonian War, was largely 
the result of this refusal. It was inaugurated under a solemn league 
entered into in December, 1826, between the white colonists and 
the disappointed tribes, and its purpose was to prosecute against 
Mexico a war of conquest, and divide the conquered territory. Ow- 
ing to a combination of disasters, the expected recruits did not join 
the Fredonian standard, and its little army melted away under the 
apathy of friends and the overwhelming numbers of enemies. 

In 1825, the Cherokees remaining east of the Mississippi num- 
bered about thirteen thousand, and owned about the same number 
of slaves. They had adopted many of the habits and industries of 
the white man, and were rapidly adopting his laws and his civili- 
zation. Trusting to their interpretation of certain treaty guaran- 
tees, made by the United States, they formed themselves into a 
soAereign nation, within the limits of Georgia, which aroused the 



64 Texas Historical Association Quarterly. 

resentment of the State, and resulted in serious complications with 
the general government — only tranquilized by tedious negotiations 
aiid wise counsels. 

Ir 1828, the goyernment ceded to the Cherokees seven million 
acres of land in Arkansas Territory, in exchange for lands east of 
the Mississippi. The year following, they were visited in their new 
'hom(3 by their friend and former guest, Sam Houston. In the ten 
years that had elapsed since his sub-agency among them in the 
east, he had achieved distinction at home, had married a young wife, 
ana had become Governor of Tennessee. For reasons not histori- 
cally known, he had abandoned his bride, abdicated his high office, 
became a voluntary exile from civilization, and was then in the wild 
}\oine of his friends, seeking the hospitalities of refuge that he 
knew would not be denied him. He there found Oolooteka, his 
adopted father, vfi^o took him to his bosom, and soon made him a 
citizen of the Nation. He lived three years among this untutored 
but warm- hearted people, and then was called back to civilization 
by the President's commission to negotiate a peace with the Com- 
anche Indians. This took him to Texas, where distinction awaited 
him; also an opportunity to serve his constant friends. 

After occupying the Arkansas tract for five years, the Cherokees, 
by a new treaty — that of 1833 — exchanged it for seven million 
acres, lying in the present Indian Territory. The Cherokees east 
of the Mississippi were, meanwhile, agitating with endless conflicts 
the white people and their governments. They were haunted with 
the fear of forcible expulsion from their ancestral seats in the east, 
and of losing their tribal identity in the common mass of amalgam- 
ated savages in the west. Tliere seems to be a sentiment universal 
in the human heart to cherish with reverence the ancestral stream 
down which has coursed its own life blood. "Even the meanest and 
most ignorant of the Tartars," says Gil>bon, "]->rescrved with con- 
scious pride the inestimable treasure of their genealogy." Pride of 
ancestrj'' had deep root in the Cherokee breast, and it cried aloud for 
resistance to acts that would, at a blow, rob them of both the name 
and ilio l)onio of their fathurs. They, therefore, in 1829, set up 
their claim to nationality, and to all the sovereign rights that be- 
long to it. President Jackson answered this claim by recalling the 
fact that, during the Pevplutionary war, thoy were the allies of 
Croat Hritnin, and tliat. consequontly, by the event of the war. their 



The Cherokee Nation of Indians. 65 

sovereignty, like liers, ceased over every part of the territory em- 
braced within the limits of either of the thirteen Colonies. He also 
recalled the fact, that, while the government, under the treaty of 
1783, received the vanquished Cherokees "into favor and protec- 
tion," it did not restore to them their lost sovereignty. A sullen 
discontent rankled in the bosom of these disappointed Indians for 
several years. At last, in 1835, a treaty was negotiated with them, 
by which they ceded to the United States all their remaining terri- 
tory east of the Mississippi, consisting of about eight millions of 
acres; and stipulated to remove west two years after the ratification. 
The consideration therefor was five million dollars, and the new 
home designated was the western outlet lying beyond the Indian 
Territory. The removal of the Indians was opposed by John Koss, 
their Chief, and excited such general discussion that it forced itself 
into the politics of the day. 

In this same year of 1835, the Western Oherokees sought recog- 
nition of their alleged claim under the Mexican convention of thir- 
teen years before. The General Consultation, urged thereto by 
Sam Houston, who was a member of that body, also commander 
of the Texas army, affirmed their title to the lands they then oc- 
cupied north and west of Nacogdoches and lying between the 
Neches and Angelina rivers. In February of the following year, 
Sam Houston, as chairman of a commission appointed by Governor 
Henry Smith concluded with these Indians a treaty of amity, alli- 
ance and cession. In 1837 the senate of the Republic of Texas re- 
jected the treaty of the Provisional Government, and in 1838 Pres- 
ident Lamar directed the attention of congress to this act of the 
senate, and to the further fact that Mexico had never, under any 
form of government, either conveyed or promised to convey as 
allodial property any portion of the Texas territory then, or at 
any time, occupied or claimed by the Cherokees. In July of the 
following year the Texan government summoned a conference with 
the Indians and proposed to reimburse their expenditures on con- 
dition of their peaceable return to the Indian Territory. Their 
wily chief. Bowles, prolonged the parley till he coulrl bring up re- 
inforcements. A two days' battle resulted. Eusk and Burleson, 
with five hundred Texans, drove a thousand braves out of the 
land, killing their leader and burning their villages. This appeal 
to arms decided the conflict of title in a manner that admitted of 



u 



66 Texas Historical Association Quarterly. 

no appeal and brought jjermanent peace to the settlements. Six 
ononths later, Gen. Rusk drove a remaining fragment of these In- 
dians from San Saba county, in which they had sought refuge. 
In the following year their powerful and steadfast friend, Sam 
Houston, then a member of the Texan congress, made a last and 
vigorous appeal in their behalf. It was unavailing, and the Cher- 
okees thenceforward ceased to vex the people of Texas with either 
their presence or their supplications. 

During these struggles of the Western Oherokees for expansion 
of territory, their Eastern brethren were contending with the 
United States for the possession of the lands they had surrendered 
under the treaty, and were ultimately transferred by threats or by 
military force to the West. A few of their number had betaken 
themselves to 'tihe mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee, 
and thus escaped the general exodus of their tribe. 

After all the Cherokees were finally settled on their extensive 
reservation in the West, it was found that they were torn by dis- 
sensions and divided into hostile parties. These parties were three 
in number: The ''old settler" element that had voluntarily re- 
moved in 1819, the "Treaty" or "Eidge" element that migrated 
under the treaty of 1835, and the "Eoss" element that was removed 
by military force. All efforts at reconciliation were futile; the 
chiefs grew more resentful under discussilon; ferocity crept into 
every wigwam; and the assassination of pro'minent leaders be- 
came the rule of conduct expected of every patriot. These disor- 
ders could not be permitted by the government of the United 
States, and in 1844 the President appointed a commission to in- 
quire into their cause and suggest a proper remedy. It met at 
Fort Gibson, but its inquiries yielded no practical results. 

About t*his time, when the nation most needed the counsels of its 
wise men, it sustained an immeasurable loss in the death of the 
venerated and gifted half-breed, Sequoyah, also called from his 
Dutch father, George (hiess, who, it will be remembered, was the 
unlettered inventor of the Cherokee alphabet. He has been called 
the Cadmus of his people: but greater was he than Cadmus. The 
Phoenician carried to Greece letters already invented, the Cher- 
okee invented thoTn himself. A true lover of his people, ho had 
gone to Mexico to find ;mi(1 ])ring back tlie scattered bands of his 
discontented bretlircn ;ni(l died in tlic midst of his scavcb. and was 



The Cherokee Nation of Indians 67 

buried far from the tomb of his fathers and unsung in the solemn 
dirge of his nation. 

After this great national bereavement, the factions grew more 
violent, and so grea;t became their rancor that within the short 
space of a few months the annals of this wretched people were 
stained with a record of thirty-three murders of the nation's dis- 
tinguished men. The United States again interposed their au- 
thority to put an end to this state of anarohy and crime. Commis- 
sioners conferred with representatives of the three factions and 
negotiated with them a plan of pacification out of which grew the 
treaty of 1846. It provided for the extinction of all sectional pol- 
icies and a general amnesty of all political offenses; it also re- 
affirmed and extended the cession of land already made, and pro- 
vided for their reversion to the United ^States in case of the extinc- 
tion of the Oherokees or their abandonment of tJhe possession. 

After an interval of comparative repose, the Cherokees "^^ere 
again aroused by serious disturbance. White settlers were tres- 
passing upon their territory, and abolitionists from the ISTorth were 
corrupting their slaves. The United States, in 1860, sent troops 
to expel the invaders, but the Civil AVar put a stop to these mili- 
tary operations. The war itself was the signal for further intestine 
strife. The Indians were divided on the question of slavery, and 
were, therefore, divided in their allegiance between the two con- 
tending sections. The Ross party was in sympathy with the :N'orth; 
its opponents were friendly to the South. The two factions, how- 
ever, met in convention and there healed their differences, and as 
a single nation formed an alliance with the Confederate States. 
They organized two regiments for the Southern army, and placed 
them in command of Col. Drew and Col. Stand Watie, adherents 
of the Ross and anti-Ross parties, respectively. Col. Drew's regi- 
ment of Ross men soon deserted the Confederate colors and enlist- 
ed in the United States service. Ross then renounced his affilia- 
tions with the South and tbrew himself into the arms of the Fed- 
eral government, not, however, to incur any peril in its defense, 
but to hide under the shadow of its protection; for he at once took 
refuge in the safe city of Philadelphia, in which he closely abided 
till the close of the war. The Indian Territory, meantime, became 
the theatre of guerilla warfare, and its warring factions daily grew 
in the fervor of their mutual hatred. 



68 Texas Historical Association Quarterly. 

At the close of the war the United States became anxious to 
define their authority and to readjust Indian reservations con- 
formably with plans to promote western emigration of citizens from 
the States. In pursuance of this purpose, delegates from all the 
tribes were summoned to meet in council at Fort Smith, and 
although no definite treaty resulted from this meeting, it afforded 
the commissioners an opportunity to submit the demands of the 
United States government for the preservation of peace and public 
order. It also enabled them to denounce John Eoss as a public 
disturber, and degrade him from his chieftaincy; and it further 
afforded them the personal conference necessary to give adequate 
instructions to the two Cherokee factions for the submission of 
their grievances to the general government. For the purposes of 
this last object, representatives of the Federal and Confederate ele- 
ments of the Nation repaired early in 1866 to Washington, where 
for several months their cause was judicially considered, though 
the court failed to effect the reunion so ardently desired by the 
goverment. In consequence separate treaties were negotiated with 
the hostile sections. In June that with the Southern Cherokees 
was concluded, by which a certain portion of the reservation was 
set apart for their exclusive use and subject to their exclusive juris- 
diction. In July that with the Northern Cherokees was made, and 
inasmuch as they were in the majority, and in undisputed posses- 
sion of the machinery of government, the treaty with them was 
made binding on the whole Nation. It provided by its terms for 
the establishment of a Federal court and one or more military posts 
in the Nation, also a general inter-tribal council; it authorized, 
under certain conditions, the settlement of other tribes in the Na- 
tion; it ceded to the United States in trust its "neutral" land and 
its "Cherokee strip," to be sold for the benefit of the Nation; it 
provided a right of way through the Nation from north to south 
and one from east to west for the construction of railroads; and it 
guaranteed the Cherokees in the peacable possession of their lands, 
in the enjoyment of their domestic institutions, and against the 
unauthorized intrusions of white men. Two years later a supple- 
mental article to this treaty was confirmed, whereby was ratified 
the sale of the "neutral land" made by the United States. Four 
years after t^his the government began the sale, in limited parcels, 
of the "Cherokee strip." 



The Cherokee Nation of Indians. 69 

About the time of the prochimation of the treaty of '66, the Sec- 
retary of the Interior reeomuieuded to the commissioners to restore 
John Eoss to the chieftaincy from which they had removed him. 
T'he old leader, however, had passed beyond the clemency of his 
Judges; he lay stricken with a mortal sickness, and died within a 
few days at Washington, at the advanced age of seventy-six years. 
He was of Scotch-Indian parentage, and his character was strongly 
marked with the thrift of one side, the cunning of the other, and 
the persistency of both. Though only a half-breed, he was always 
the champion of the full-blooded Cherokees in any conflict between 
them and their brethren of mixed descent. His career, though not 
altogether an admirable one, was, throughout its course, singularly 
remarkable. 

By virtue of a provision in the treaty of '66, a body of Delawares 
and a fragmentary band of Munsees, also about eight hundred 
Shawnees, were assigned homes in the Cherokee domain, and were 
merged into the great family tribe of the Cherokees. The Osages, 
the Kaws, the Pawnees, the Poncas, the Otoes, and the Missourias, 
also acquired homestead tracts in the Cherokee reservation, but 
they still preserved their tribal independence and identity. This 
infusion of a neAV strain into the national life of the Cherokees 
seemed to bring together the fragments of this broken people. A 
season of peace blessed their unhappy dwellings, and' abundant 
harvests rewarded their reluctant toil. Two years of sudh content- 
ment served to soften the asperities that had so long divided them, 
and to cover their past with a healing oblivion. 

Under another provision of this treaty of '66, the Congress of 
the United States, by grants of lands and privileges, secured the 
construction of two important railroads through the Indian Terri- 
tory. Both opened vast regions to civilization, and peopled them 
with a multitude of its pioneers. Many of these did not go beyond 
the Cherokee lands, and so great was their number, and so largely 
augmented by other alien residents and by the irruption of negro 
freedmen, that the Cherokees, realizing their feeble minority and 
the danger that threatened their power, enacted laws that limited 
the privileges of citizenslhip to their own unmixed people, and that 
provided for the removal of all others beyond their borders. These 
acts were resisted, not only by the sufferers under them, but by the 
United States government, whose authority was thereby superseded, 



70 Texas Historical Association Quarterly. 

in violation of treaty engagements. In consequence, an order was 
promulgated, forbidding the removal of aliens unless by judicial 
process after due trial and approval by the Department of the In- 
terior. The haTsh procedure proposed by the Nation's legislative 
council was thus averted, but for ten years the questions involved 
provoked angry and unending conferences between the Federal gov- 
ernment and the Nation, and kept the threatened classes in per- 
petual fear of physical harm or of ultimate eviction from their 
homes. 

The United States government sought to remedy these evils, 
which, it was thought, resulted from the system of holding the en- 
tire Indian domain in a single unbroken tribal tract. Provision was, 
therefore, made, under act of February 8, 1887, for the allotment 
of lands in severalty to Indians on the different reservations. Four 
years later, part of the cause of the irritation was removed by the 
retrocession to the United States of the six million acre tract 
known as the "Cherokee Outlet" and the enrichment of the Chero- 
kee treasury by a deposit of eight million dollars to its credit. 

By act of March 3. 1893, Congress, among other measures of 
relief, made provision for the training school of the Cherokee set- 
tlement in North Carolina — the last remnant of the Nation east of 
the Mississippi. By the same act the system of land allotments al- 
ready inaugurated was further strengthened and promoted. To 
this end the President was directed to appoint three commissioners 
to negotiate with the Five Civilized Tribes, of which the Cherokee 
Nation is one, for the surrender of tribal title to all lands in the 
Territory, either by cession to the United States, or by allotment 
in severalty among the Indians, or by other equitable means to be 
agreed on — this extinguishment of title to be the precursor of the 
creation of one or more States out of the lands so taken from the 
national domain. The agency created under this law is known as 
the Dawes Commission, so called from the name of its chairman. 
It has been perpetuated and its powers enlarged by subsequent acts, 
the last of which abolishes tribal courts in the Territory, substitut- 
ing Federal courts in their stead, and gives to the President the 
veto power over all acts of tribal councils. Thus despoiled of a 
Nation's vital functions, but little remains to be done to complete 
the destruction of tribal autonomy; thtit little may be safely predi- 



The Cherokee Nation of Indians. 71 

cated of the policy that has thus far directed the counsels and the 
conduct of the government. 

The Dawes Commission has reported its inability to effect the 
submission of the tribes, and it particularly mentions the Ohero- 
kees as inflexible in their opposition to any agreement that con- 
templates the final act of tribal disintegration. The chairman is of 
opinion that the only remedy for the "evils that afflict these peo- 
ple" lies in the division and allotment of their public domain 
among the individuals of the several tribes. The Secretary of the 
Interior, in his report, presents a gloomy array of vicious results 
growing out of the Indians' methods of administering the public 
business, and he concludes his seardhing arraignment by recom- 
mending the total extinction of tribal government in the Territory 
and the substitution of a system by which the Indians will become 
United States citizens and be governed by United States laws. The 
President, in his message to Congress, fully accepts the Secretary's 
eonelusions, and adds that the conditions of Indian life have so 
changed that their system of government has become "practically 
impossible," and that the evils resulting from the perversion of 
the great trusts confided to them can only be cured "by the re- 
sumption of control by the government which created them." 

It does not require any remarkable perspicacity to perceive that 
history is about to close its brief page of the Cherokees as a ISTation. 
Their broad fields and the boundless desire of their neighbors to 
possess them is hastening this consummation. The most universal 
passion in the breast of man seems to be an immortal longing after 
the soil from which 'he sprung, whether continent, island, or vine- 
yard. From the day he was expelled from the garden he has wanted 
a paramount estate — a paradise of his own. To that end all his 
aspirations have pointed, and, whether Israelite, Goth, or Anglo- 
Saxon, his mania has ever been the conquest and possession of the 
earth. He may be honest in all that concerns the money and the 
movables of another, he may be sinless of even the desirt for the 
personalty of his neighbor, but, alas, the allodium of his brother 
puts too great a strain upon his virtue; 'his nature breaks down 
under the temptation. And thus it is that the spacious and fertile 
acres of the Cherokees are destined, through the devices of the 
white man, to pass into other hands. 



72 Texas Historical Association Quarterly. 

The Nation now numbers about twenty eight thousand souls, 
consisting of pure and mixed-blood Cherokees, of whites who have 
intermarried with them, of other tribes absorbed by them, and of 
negroes who, though socially distinct, have acquired civil rights 
under their government. Although so composite in character, this 
people has, for j^ears, been daily becoming more homogeneous in all 
that appertains to its national life. 

Notwithstanding the faults, the failures, and the infirmities of 
the Cherokee Nation, it may be said to have achieved a splendid 
victory over the calamities that have, for a hundred years, deci- 
mated its numbers and imperiled its life; and history will record 
that the Cherokee, in his individual progress, has demonstrated 
"the capability of the American Indian, under favorable conditions, 
to realize in a high degree the ^possibilities of Anglo-Saxon civili- 
zation." 




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